Computer -mediated communication and organizational culture: A survey-based study and agent-based simulation model.

Abstract

This research examines the mutual relationship between the organizational use of Computer Mediated Communication (CMC) and Computer Information Systems (CIS) and organizational culture. CMC and CIS supplement the necessary communication among members of an organization to maintain the culture, especially when those members cannot communicate by other means. On the other hand, a strong organizational culture allows a more effective use of CMC and CIS by providing members with some of the necessary common ground to better understand the information exchanged. Complementing those arguments, the study suggests that the effective use of CMC and CIS is related to some attributes of the task that each member must carry out. These task characteristics, combined with the information flexibility that different CMC and CIS systems provide, determine how useful the systems are and thus, how frequently users will employ the systems. The study investigates the phenomenon using a survey-based study that collects data about the difficulty, variability and interdependence of tasks, the organizational culture strength of the firm the respondents belong to, the information flexibility of the available systems and the frequency of use of them. The results suggest that task difficulty, organizational culture strength and information flexibility positively influence the use of CMC and CIS. On the other hand, task variability negatively affects the use of CMC and CIS. Additionally, task difficulty and variability might moderate the relationship between organizational culture and frequency of use of the systems. Complementing the survey-based study, the paper employs an agent-based simulation model to further investigate the dynamics of the phenomenon. This model concludes that organizational culture influences the communication effectiveness of CMC and that CMC helps maintain and stabilize a culture. The effect of organizational culture strength on communication effectiveness is stronger when CMC exhibits a low capability of transferring multiple dimensions of the culture. The effect of CMC on organizational culture depends on the initial strength of the culture. In general, an initially strong culture benefits more from the communication capabilities that CMC provides than a weak culture. An initially strong culture stabilizes faster and becomes stronger through time than an initially weak culture.